Discussing the Status of the Company of St. George

Before we took up the blog posts again, there was a pause of several weeks. But we have not been sleeping during that period. In fact, the late Winter 2011 marked the climax of a discussion about 25 years of Company of St. George, the status of the group and the direction we want to take. This discussion is now over and we will be presenting a formal report to our Annual General Meeting. From the outside, there is not much that is going to change: The Company of St. George wants to remain loyal to the idea of portraying a small Burgundian Artillery Company with its artisans and families. But we we continue to recreate other aspects of medieval life from time to time as we have done in the past. Otherwise, it's mostly internal stuff and of no big interest to the outside world.

However, during the discussion we touched on a set of questions that felt crucial to the situation we are in and I believe that some these questions apply to other reenactors and to other living-history associations too. Now I will not tell you what our answers have been, but maybe you want to think about these questions for yourself as well:

What is the right level of authenticity - where are our limits?Do we want to display social hierarchy at events and if so how much is acceptable?Roleplaying: Where does it start and where should it stop?Do we allow to reenact religion?How far do we take authenticity when it comes to food?Are we doing this 24h a day or not?Should there be a geographical congruency of event and scenario? (-> Can you do Burgundians in Czechia?)Alcohol? When? In what form? How much? How strongly can we enforce a costume standard on our members?Are we motivated to work for the group outside of events? How many hours per week / month is that?